The President and I rushed back from the ceremony (our plenary session is being held this time in the European Commission’s Charlemagne building) so as to be present at the opening of an art exhibition in the EESC’s flagship Jacques Delors building. The exhibition, timed to coincide with the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, has the title ‘100 years of abstract art’ and features the works of five artists covering different Belgian regions: Guy Vandebranden (Antwerp), Jean Dubois (Hainaut), Guillaume Vanden Borre (Brabant), Victor Noel (Hainaut) and the sculptress, Hilde Van Sumere (Flemish Brabant). As Mario Sepi put it in his introductory remarks, the exhibition is proof that culture knows no boundaries. I had the privilege of meeting Guy Vandebranden (see picture), one of those people of great modesty and absolute determination and whose work features bold, geometric shapes and forms and bright colours surrounded by dark outlines that somehow create an illusion of depth and space.